SteveLyons

While Lou Piniella was being introduced as the new manager of the Chicago Cubs yesterday, he mentioned the incident that got Steve Lyons fired from Fox after game three of the ALCS over the weekend. If you remember, Lyons made what could have been construed as an offensive remark about Piniella's Spanish heritage during the broadcast. Although, if you read the entire incident, it was really more of a case of Lyons acting like an idiot than being purposely offensive.

Well, Piniella, who laughed when Lyons made his remark during the game, reiterated that he had no problem with it; "There isn't a racist bone in his body. Not one," he told the gathered reporters. "I've known the guy personally. He was kidding with me, nothing more and nothing less."

Lyons will keep his job on the Dodgers broadcasting team, after going through diversity training. I tell ya, Vin Scully's rolling in his grave over this, and the man's not even dead yet.

On Fox's baseball broadcasts, analyst Steve "Psycho" Lyons has always acted like a bit of a dipweed. You know what I'm talking about: he'd rather make a dumb joke at someone's expense than, you know, analyze the baseball game. Now an offhanded remark about fellow analyst Lou Piniella made during Friday's Game 3 of the ALCS has gotten Lyons fired from Fox Sports.

According to The New York Times, Lyons tried to continue on a line about "trying to find a wallet" that Pinella mentioned earlier in the game; when Piniella spoke a line in Spanish, Lyons said, "Lou's habla'ing some Español there, and I'm still looking for my wallet. I don't understand him and I don't want to sit close to him now." Fox fired him right after the game and replaced him for the rest of the series (which turned out to be only one game, as the Tigers swept the A's) by radio analyst Jose Mota.